Education System Needs Another Seismic Game-Changer

"The best way to improve the American [Jamaican my insert] workforce in the 21st century is to invest in early childhood education, to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children have the opportunity to succeed alongside their more advantaged peers." -- James Heckman [Nobel Laureate in Economics]

The recent revelation by Ainsworth Darby, chairman of EducateJamaica.Org. that only 41 of 161, or 25 per cent, of high schools surveyed were able to attain the minimum threshold of 50 per cent of their students passing five CSEC subjects at one sitting, for the umpteenth time rings home the reality that the foundations of Jamaica's education system urgently needs another seismic game-changer.

The fact that at many schools the pass rate was below three per cent -- and that is after nearly a third of the cohort who entered the secondary school system at grade one had either dropped out before grade 11, or were screened out of the examinations -- reminds us that we are in deep trouble.

The most recent findings of the National Education Inspectorate (NEI), as revealed in an executive summary by the minister of education, Ronald Thwaites, on December 13, 2013 at a briefing at The Courtleigh Hotel, reiterates the crisis.

"Approximately 45 per cent or 140 of the schools inspected in this round were rated as effective, while 55 per cent or 164 were rated as ineffective. Leadership and management in one per cent of the schools was rated as exceptionally high; eight per cent as good; and 46 per cent as satisfactory. Forty-one per cent was rated as unsatisfactory and four per cent as 'needs immediate support'.

"Teaching support in four per cent of the schools was rated as good and 49 per cent was rated as satisfactory. Forty-six per cent was rated as unsatisfactory and one per cent as 'needs immediate support'. In the area of students' attainment, six per cent of the schools inspected were above the national averages and the Ministry of Education's targets in English and Mathematics. Fifteen per cent was at the national averages and 79 per cent was below the national averages," Thwaites said.

Incidentally, the most recent NEI report on the ministry's website is from 2011. We are now heading into 2015. What has happened to the full reports for the 304 schools that were inspected in the 2012/13 cycle?

The Jamaica Teachers' Association can cuss the Ministry of Education all it wants, and the ministry can return barbs all it wants; parents can blame teachers and teachers can blame the home and lack of resources till we are blue in the face; spin doctors can spin till they are dizzy; the fact is, the local education system needs a seismic game-changer if we are to halt the continual failure of the system. Pockets of excellence cannot suffice anymore.

For all intents and purposes, formal primary education -- 'free education' -- started in Jamaica after the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865. The building of primary schools to provide basic education to the children of freed slaves began with the advent of Sir John Peter Grant, who replaced the infamous Sir Edward Eyre that England recalled after the slaughter of many of Baptist deacon Pual Bogle's militia.

Formal 'education' before that grand episode in Jamaican history was controlled by a handful of missionaries assigned to specific churches. Only those in the middle class who could not afford the journey to England benefited. The beneficiaries became the earliest version of what we might call an indigenous civil society.

The first great game-changer in Jamaican education took place 90 years later when in 1957, the People's National Party took a serious interest in the education of the masses. One of Jamaica's doyens of education, Dr. Ivan Lloyd, then minister of education, made it public that the education system was not serving the needs of the majority black population and pin-pointed that there needed to be a managed and seamless approach to the transition from primary to secondary school.

Despite Dr. Lloyd's Herculean efforts there was a lingering problem of who could afford what, where, when and how. In the midst of a largely economically dispossessed black population, the equivalent of a modern affirmative action was needed.

In July 2007, the crux of the issue was summarised by former prime minister and distinguished fellow at the UWI, Mona, Edward Seaga this way:

"Secondary schools at the time held their own entrance examinations which enabled children of parents with means to 'buy' entry in the event of failure to gain access by merit. To overcome this, a Common Entrance Exam (CEE) was introduced in 1957, which would select successful entrants on merit only. The 1957 education policy declaration was aimed at improving the enrolment of students entering secondary schools, particularly among those who were unable to afford the fees.

"According to Dr. Lloyd, apart from the few scholarships made available by the Government prior to 1957 (130 free places in a total secondary school population of 10,000), 'those who went to secondary schools were those who could afford to'. The main objective of this policy was to award free places to all students who, irrespective of the means of their parents, had achieved a minimum standard in the Common Entrance Examination, and for whom places could be found in high schools.

"The result of the CEE was vital to selection, irrespective of whether the student originated from fee-paying preparatory schools, or government free primary schools.

"However, the result did not match the expectation or intent. By 1961, 20,000 students were sitting the CEE. Of that total, only 978 or 46 per cent of 2,133 free places to secondary schools were won by students attending primary schools, while 1,155 or 54 per cent from preparatory schools received awards. Analysis of these results indicated that only one in 86 students from primary schools had a chance of winning a free place as compared to one in four students from preparatory schools.

"Another conclusion can be drawn: 29 per cent of the students from private schools were successful, as compared to seven per cent of those originating from primary schools. Obviously there was a serious problem here, disproportionate entries."

It would not be a stretch to conclude that the majority of the children from preparatory schools were coming from middle and upper class households, while conversely the majority of the children from primary schools were from lower class economic backgrounds. Slowly but surely, a two-tiered education system was beginning to take firm roots -- the tree having been planted during Colonialism.

The system needed another huge dose of affirmative action

The second great game-changer took place when Edwin Allen, a champion of the poor, was minister of education during the JLP Government of the early 1960s. He introduced what was dubbed the 70:30 system and other foundational and functional policy changes that, to date, are of unrivalled.

"Edwin Allen, minister of education in the Jamaica Labour Party Government elected in 1962, saw the problem of disproportionate entries which militated against children from poorer homes. To adjust this, Allen announced a 70:30 policy which reserved 70 per cent of the free places to secondary schools for students from primary schools who were successful in passing the minimum standard in the CEE; the remaining 30 per cent was allotted to students from private schools.

"Notwithstanding the much larger number of free places now available as a result of the increased ratio for entrance from primary to secondary schools, there were other formidable problems to overcome -- the inadequate number of schools and school places. Only a minority of primary school graduates were able to be placed in the secondary school system.

"There was a lack of aptitude for secondary education among the majority of primary school students who gained access to the expanded secondary school system; the cost of education at the secondary level was largely unaffordable to poor parents.

"It was obvious that a considerable increase in secondary school accommodation would be necessary if all students from primary schools were to gain entrance. This problem was reported in the UNESCO Report on Jamaica's education system in 1964. It had to be solved or the other reforms would be ineffective.

"Edwin Allen introduced a sweeping plan for education reforms in 1966 which he entitled 'New Deal for Education in Independent Jamaica'. He announced an agreement with the World Bank to construct 50 [my insert, only 41 were actually built] new secondary schools to augment the existing 47 schools at secondary level; 40 primary schools by the end of 1967 and an increase in the annual output of trained teachers from 350 to 1,000 by 1969. This was the first project of the World Bank in secondary education anywhere. By more than doubling the number of secondary places, this would considerably increase the enrolment into secondary schools." -- Edward Seaga, Jamaica Gleaner, July 29, 2007.

After all the investment it was discovered that these schools, which were called junior secondary schools or 'Seckie' [a derogatory reference] as some use to call them in the country parts, accepted students who, in many if not most instances, could not read and/or write with facility, having 'graduated' from the primary school system.

Additionally, cost prevented many of the students who attended junior secondary schools from accessing the comparatively 'inferior' education that was offered. Much tinkering has been done with the junior secondary school system, which has included assorted rebranding and restructurings. This has continued to this present day.

A significant sore started to become gangrene; the majority of students who entered the junior secondary schools were not ready to receive the education simply because they were often ill-prepared at the primary and even before that at the then burgeoning early childhood level. The enormity of this specific problem was overlooked, albeit I doubt, deliberately so.

Some have argued, however, that the junior secondary schools were designed to create individuals who were to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Like a kind of Abrahamic curse they were doomed to fail. Others have been even more cynical to argue that junior secondary school students were being made into peons for the politics.

Whatever the reason, a grand opportunity was lost to correct the often number one problem that was identified in numerous assessments and studies [the children were not ready to receive secondary education] that were done on the failures in the junior secondary school system up to the middle of the 1970s. Instead, great focus was placed like a laser beam on the number two ailment -- that of affordability.

Michael Manley piggy-backed on the affordability bogey and announced in the budget presentation on May 1, 1973 'free education' from primary to university. While this was a politically triumphant moment for the poor and simultaneously fed the beast of Democratic Socialism, it resulted in the country's piggybank -- the bauxite levy -- being wiped out simply because the country could not afford 'free education'.

The oil crises of the 1970s also made matters worse. Manley, by pursuing a calamitous policy, "increased budget expenditure from $47,750,000 in the current year to $209,000,000 the next year.

The fundamental problem was left unaddressed -- the lack of quality at the early childhood and primary levels and the consequent 'unreadiness' of the children, of especially the poor, to receive secondary education.

In 1985, 'free education' at the tertiary level was abandoned by the Seaga Administration and replaced with a 15 per cent cess, and in 1994, cost sharing was introduced by the PNP Government of PJ Patterson, effectively the death knell of 'free education' at the secondary level.

Fifty years since Edwin Allen and the last great game-changer, we still have not corrected the fundamental reason for the overwhelming failure of our education system.

In 2003, after the CXC results were published, Dr Ralph Thompson, then a member of the National Council on Education, noted:

"The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) results for 2003 continue to be disastrous and provide statistical evidence that the nation's education apparatus is in deep trouble, with frightening consequences for the future of Jamaica.

"Despite the poor pass rate, however, I refuse to believe that Jamaican children are any less bright than children anywhere else. Our children possess a natural intelligence which only needs to be cultivated to blossom into brilliance. The disappointing pass rate in the CXC exams this year is a tragic reminder that the State is not honouring its obligation to educate its young citizens properly, especially the children of the poor, and that our school system needs a complete overhaul." -- Gleaner, October 3, 2003

Sounds familiar, does it not? Dr. Thompson further said:

"The solution to Jamaica's educational crisis should by now be almost self-evident: the Government must take control of the early childhood link in the system, channelling to it the best trained teachers who can give the children in their formative years the intellectual and emotional grounding they need to make up for lack of parenting and to do well in primary school."

This is where the third great game-changer in local education needs to happen. No more studies costing millions are needed to tell us this. We cannot continue to have 70 per cent of our students failing to meet the minimum standards to access tertiary education and post-secondary training. For those of you who may rebut by saying but one does not need five subjects inclusive of Mathematics and English to succeed in this current global environment, I say this to you, please send you child to one of the schools which is failing and/or have failed to prepare students to meet the minimum of minimum standards.

How might government afford funding the necessary and urgently needed take over of the early childhood system? First, we need the will. Just as how the will was needed to take over the 'patty pan, middle passage' bus system that existed from 1974 into the 1990s.

To PJ Patterson and Dr. Peter Phillips' credit, they found the will in the particular instance and took action. Today, we at least in the KMTR are better for it, notwithstanding the several problems of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company.

One, I suggest we increase the education tax by an additional two per cent on salaries of over $2 million. This would fetch $2.6 billion in additional revenue yearly. These monies would then go directly to funding a government takeover of the early childhood system. To take the burden off the consumers, GCT [no exemptions] needs to be lowered to five per cent from 16 1/2 per cent over three years.

Two, all funds from dormant accounts in commercial banks, etc., should be taken by Government to fund the takeover of the early childhood system.

Three, a national lottery established to contribute $500 million yearly to the early childhood sector.

Four, the institution of a one per cent tax on driver's licences renewal, 87 octane gas and certain categories of luxury goods imported into Jamaica -- $900 million yearly.

Five, 2/3 of one per cent tax on light and water bills -- this would fetch an additional $3.1 billion annually.

Six, the use of all schools with population of fewer than 100 as early childhood schools and relocation by the Ministry of Education of teachers, by agreement for the national good. This would save the country close to $2.6 million in construction and related costs. The days of schools being held under trees and on verandas need to end.

Seven [fines], a $2,000 fine for persons who do not vote in local government elections, an additional $2,000 for not voting in general elections.

Eight, direct all monies from marijuana fines to the early childhood system.

Nine, a one per cent tax every five years on the sales of the book industry.

We need to begin to act now to stop the rot, otherwise our children, in particular the children of the poor, will continue to experience mass failures. Channelling millions into remedial programmes after the horse is gone through the gate is but a waste of resources.

"Ensuring that children have positive experiences prior to entering school is likely to lead to better outcomes than remediation programmes at a later age, and significant up-front costs can generate a strong return on investment." -- Centre on the Developing Child, Harvard University

Garfield Higgins - educator and journalist.